“The Brontë’s were my favourites. Me and some of my sisters are writers so we would constantly argue which Brontë we were. Of course, I was Charlotte and my more hysterical sister could be Emily, because she wrote Wuthering Heights. Then my sister Caz would stoically say, ‘Well, I suppose I’m Anne, then’.“Jane Eyre was the one for me because all the books I usually read were about working class girls who need to make their way in the world who aren’t pretty, which is really important, and who are just a bit odd but still just through hard work and cheerfulness and resourcefulness manage to triumph.“Anne Of Green Gables, Little Women and Jane Eyre were the books that made me think, ‘Maybe I will be OK’ because these girls seem to have found a way through. (Hannah Stephenson)
What book …would you take to a desert island?I love Maria McCann’s As Meat Loves Salt, I’ve read it seven or eight times. It’s an immersive, historical love story set at the time of the English Civil War. Jacob Cullen is a disgraced soldier, a violent, possessive man who falls in love with a fellow soldier, Christopher Ferris.At first everything is great between them, but as England keeps changing their relationship is soon tested. When it becomes clear that Jacob cannot be with his lover, his obsession becomes deadly. This is a real heartbreaker of a book. It’s a historical gay romance, and sort of like my version of Wuthering Heights.
Un amor maduro, el particular modo de vida de las clases acomodadas porteñas a comienzos del siglo XX y los secretos más oscuros de una familia son los ejes de La institutriz, la novela más reciente de Gabriela Margall que suma elementos del gótico a su tradicional narrativa romántica y que con reminiscencias de Jane Eyre -el célebre libro de Carlota Brontë- cuenta la historia de Elizabeth Shaw, una mujer inglesa que llegó al Río de la Plata a trabajar como institutriz. [...]-¿Cómo surgió el cruce del género tradicional con el gótico, el claro homenaje a “Jane Eyre”?- Si escribía sobre “la institutriz” como tema, no se me ocurría trabajar sin Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë, o esa otra institutriz menos conocida que es Agnes Grey de Anne Brontë. Al principio quería poner imágenes, referencias a Jane Eyre: un protagonista frustrado, un perro, una niña llamada Adèle (la niña de “La Institutriz” se llama Adela). Cuando incorporé el último ingrediente, la locura y el secreto, la novela tomó un aire gótico imposible de negar. Si al principio fue inconsciente, después fue deliberado y muy divertido mezclar el género romántico y el gótico. (Analia Páez) (Translation)
Esse é um dos motivos por que o romance da autora –o sexto de sua carreira– empolgou crítica e público no ano passado. A tradição da literatura gótica é encabeçada por nomes surgidos no século 19, como Emily Brontë, autora de "O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes", e Charlotte Brontë, de "Jane Eyre", na vertente romântica, e Bram Stoker, de "Drácula", e Mary Shelley, de "Frankenstein", na vertente do terror. (Translation)
3. Old Hall, Howarh [sic]As you can see by this picture, there are plenty of outdoor tables and plenty of members of staff to serve you drinks. With beautiful views across West Yorkshire and in the heart of Bronte Country, it's a great place for drink on a nice day. (Jonathan Pritchard)
55. Locations for the shooting of feature films include Chatsworth House (Pride and Prejudice), Haddon Hall (Jane Eyre) and North Lees Hall (The Other Boleyn Girl).56. Legendary authors such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and William Wordsworth have been inspired by the park’s treasures. (Gay Bolton)
Plans to transform a house with Brontë links into luxury holiday accommodation have received the seal of approval.Proposals for a major refurbishment of the Grade II* listed former Red House museum, at Gomersal, won all-party support at a meeting of Kirklees Council’s cabinet.Dating back to 1660, the property and grounds are considered an important heritage asset.They are associated with Luddite activities and the Taylor family – particularly Mary Taylor, a writer and early feminist.And the house is revered by Brontë fans. Charlotte – a friend of Mary – was a regular guest at the property in the 1830s and gave it a starring role as Briarmains in her novel, Shirley.Kirklees Council plans to invest £600,000 in the site to bring the historic house – and a neighbouring cart shed – back into use.Red House operated as a community museum, but falling visitor numbers and rising costs led to its closure in 2016.A decision to allow the property to be marketed for private sale prompted a petition from Red House Heritage Group in 2019, which resulted in the council’s cabinet agreeing to explore alternative uses for the site which could maintain it in public hands.Under the new plan, designed to appeal to the luxury tourism market, the house will accommodate ten guests. And once the business is established, it may also host weddings. The cart shed will be split into four self-catering apartments.Revenue generated from holiday stays is expected to be sufficient to cover the cost of operating the scheme and to enable a series of open days/weekends to take place, ensuring community access to the site.Senior councillor Graham Turner told cabinet colleagues: “It’s important we recognise this project has been a challenge due to its complexity and its historical links with the Brontes, but I am sure it will be a great success and will pave the way forward on how we deal with similar buildings in the future. I suspect other councils will be keeping a keen eye on this, as it’s groundbreaking for a local authority to develop this type of project.”Colin Parr, strategic director for environment and climate change, said the scheme would allow the council to retain the property in public ownership without incurring huge operating costs. (Alistair Shand)
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëDuring her short lifetime, she published only this one novel. The violent tale was received with dismay. But its reputation grew. And grew. Into a classic. It was published 174 years ago, and still feels relevant and contemporary. The foundling Heathcliff could never cope with the fact that his twin flame Catherine married a childhood friend. A wonderful novel depicting passion and revenge spanning generations. (Jonas Jonasson)
Amateur theatricals have a history, too. Nineteenth-century novels like “Mansfield Park” or “Jane Eyre” detail private friends-and-family performances. (Alexis Soloski)
27. Hathersage is said to feature in the novels of Charlotte Brontë.
Great to host the cast and crew of @SHUScreen @screenyorkshire #keepingupwiththeBrontes today. Looking forward to seeing the edit! #Haworth pic.twitter.com/F58jbJdvpG
— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) April 14, 2021
Juliet GardinerPavilion BooksISBN: 9781849946605April 15, 2021
The Illustrated Letters of the Brontës is the story both of the real world of the Brontës at Haworth Parsonage, their home on the edge of the lonely Yorkshire moors, and of the imaginary worlds they spun for themselves in their novels and poetry. Wherever possible, their story is told using their own words – the letters they wrote to each other, Emily and Anne’s secret diaries, and Charlotte’s exchanges with luminaries of literary England – or those closest to them, such as their brother Branwell, their father Patrick Brontë, and their novelist friend Mrs Gaskell.
The Brontës sketched and painted their worlds too, in delicate ink washes and watercolours of family and friends, animals and the English moors. These pictures illuminate the text as do the tiny drawings the Brontë children made to illustrate their imaginary worlds. In addition, there are facsimiles of their letters and diaries, paintings by artists of the day, and pictures of household life.
It is a unique and privileged view of the real lives of three women, writers and sisters.
Council chiefs in Kirklees say investing in a listed historical building with connections to the Brontës will ensure it has a long-term future whilst remaining in public ownership.There was cross-party support for a plan to turn Gomersal’s Red House, formerly a museum, into a short-term holiday destination and intimate wedding venue.In proposing the £600,000 project to Kirklees Council ’s Cabinet on Tuesday, senior councillor Graham Turner described it as “something of a departure on how we would normally deal with assets that we can no longer afford to keep, and which we have no strategic need for.”The Grade II* listed 19th century manor house will be comprehensively refurbished and sympathetically remodelled to become a five-star high-end luxury holiday home for commercial holiday letting, accommodating 10 people within five bedrooms to be let as a single holiday cottage unit. [...]The handover could be as soon as March 2022 with the house open for holidays in April.The project has received cross-party support. Clr David Hall, a Gomersal member and also leader of the Conservative group on the council, said turning it over to part commercial use represented “an imaginative solution”.He and his colleagues Lisa Holmes and Michelle Grainger-Mead previously referred to Red House as “the heritage jewel in Gomersal’s crown”.Clr Turner added: “It’s important that we recognise that this project has been a challenge due to its complexity and its historical links with the Brontës, but I am sure that this will be a great success and will pave the way forward on how we deal with similar buildings in the future.“I suspect that other local authorities will be keeping a keen eye on this, as it’s truly groundbreaking for a local authority to develop this type of project.”The site will not be completely devoted to commercial hires. Community access to the house and gardens will be offered over a series of managed and curated events and open days thus allowing the public to enjoy the house and grounds.With its connections to Charlotte Brontë , who stayed at Red House and renamed it ‘Briarmains’ in her 1849 novel Shirley, the site is expected to have broad appeal. (Tony Earnshaw)
The play imagines iconic heroines of 19th century literature rebelling from their scripted destiny, in defiance of their suitors. [...]Jo (from Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women”), Lizzie (from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”), Cathy (from Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”) and Jane (Charlotte Brontë’s titular “Jane Eyre”) have all been hailed for their creators’ respective depictions of independent women who resist the expectations placed on them by the mores of their era. Here, the playwright has extended the concept one giant leap farther, with the foursome meeting on the desolate moors where the Brontë sisters’ novels transpire, and establishing a militant, feminist collective far from the madding pleas and demands of their would-be lovers, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, Heathcliff and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence.While the women bonded over s’mores around a cozy campfire, the men were quickly revealed to be petty bullies and insecure cry-babies. That in itself might make for an amusing and intriguing storyline, but plotting among some of the source material’s supporting characters led to all-out warfare, and a somber conclusion that called for reconciliation, and suggested that some destinies cannot be avoided.The strength of USC’s undergraduate acting program was on full display here, with Susan Swavely as a spunky Jo, Sydni Brown frenzied as destitute Jane, Emma James elegant as Lizzie, and Zoe Chan appropriately volatile as Cathy, until unavoidable plot developments rendered her serene and omniscient. Recent graduate John Romanski convincingly played decades older than his actual age as the tortured Rochester, and Cameron Eubanks nearly stole every scene he was in as the spoiled, temperamental Laurie. [...]And while one doesn’t need to have read all of the source novels to understand the cultural and symbolic significance of the unattainable Mr. Darcy or the bad-boy Heathcliff, I fear many jokes, inside references and important plot devices were simply lost on anyone who didn’t remember who the Binghams, St. John Rivers or Marmee might be, and how they influence the lives of the main characters. (August Krickell)
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëJane Eyre is celebrated on many grounds: its insightful portrayal of childhood, its passionate proto-feminism, the heart-stopping romance of its central love story, to name but a few. I love it for all these reasons, but I also love it because it is Properly Creepy. I still get goosebumps when I imagine Jane waking at night to the sound of malevolent laughter outside her bedroom door. As with any self-respecting horror story, the reality of Jane’s situation is murky: is Thornfield Hall haunted by a ghost, or a would-be murderer, or is the mystery a trick of Jane’s mind, a symptom of her own dark desires? The scene that stays with me most vividly takes place shortly before Jane’s wedding, when she wakes at night to find an unknown woman standing in front of the mirror, wearing her bridal veil... It’s a gothic masterclass. (Elizabeth Brooks)
[The book that]...I brought on a momentous trip:This was probably the very best night of my life so far: the night I got to sleep over at the Brontë parsonage in Haworth !!!! (I still can’t quite believe it actually happened.) I was too keyed up to sleep properly. I was in a room situated between Emily and Charlotte’s bedrooms, lying in a four poster bed frame that had belonged to their father, and it just felt like my heart had grabbed my brain by the elbow and was just galloping around and around with it. Luckily I had [Jorge Luis] Borges’ Collected Fictions (translated by Andrew Hurley) on my e-reader, and they kept me company until my eyes closed…and probably afterwards, too. (Riza Cruz)
But while the existing understanding of romance novels held by those unfamiliar with the genre tends to be limited to old world prose penned by the likes of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, or pulp novels filled with high levels of lust and not much else, the romance books of today find a happy medium between the two aforementioned extremes. (Ana Eksoucian-Cavadas)
6 Walk to spectacular views and charming villages of the Yorkshire Dalessummer holidaysA summer holiday in Yorkshire offers the perfect opportunity to get back to nature, stretch your legs after months of being cooped up at home and discover beautiful new places.Exploring the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales, taking scenic rail journeys and getting to know quaint market towns is an invigorating way to celebrate the end of travel restrictions.During Prima's five-day walking and railway staycation, you can ride the Embassy and Bolton Abbey Railway, embark on a Brontë-themed walk across Yorkshire's wild moors and be treated to more stunning scenery on a Penine Bridleway walk from £549 per person.When? August 2021 (Roshina Jowaheer)
Wuthering Heights InnAs you can guess from the name, this site in Stanbury, Keighley, is in the heart of Brontë Country.You are in the perfect place to explore the area where Charlotte, Emily and Anne lived and were inspired to write their timeless novels, from the unspoiled moors and Dales to the village of Haworth and all the surrounding areas.As the name also suggests, there is a pub right on hand to keep you fed and watered (or beered) with a selection of food and drink.For camping prices start at £15, and it also has two shepherd’s huts for glamping at £55 a night. (David Jagger)
Jo Carruthers (editor), Nour Dakkak (editor), Rebecca Spence (editor)Springer International PublishingISBN 978-3-030-29816-6Anticipatory Materialisms explores nineteenth and early twentieth-century literature thatanticipates and pre-empts the recent philosophical ‘turn’ to materiality and affect. Critical volumes that approach literature via the prism of New Materialism are in the ascendence. This collection stakes a different claim: by engaging with neglected theories of materiality in literary and philosophical works that antedate the twenty-first century ‘turn’ to New Materialism and theories of affect, the project aims to establish a dialogue between recent theoretical considerations of people-world relations in literature and that which has gone before. This project seeks to demonstrate the particular a
nd meaningful ways in which interactions between people and the physical world were being considered in literature between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The project does not propose an air of finality; indeed, it is our hope that offering provocative and challenging chapters, which approach the subject from various critical and thematic perspectives, the collection will establish a broader dialogue regarding the ways in philosophy and literature have intersected and informed each other over the course of the long nineteenth century.
The book includes the chapter “The Impatient Anticipations of Our Reason”: Rough Sympathy in Friedrich Schiller and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre by Jo Carruthers.
There are a number of events at St. Mary’s Church including bestselling writer Rowan Coleman who introduces her Brontë mysteries under the pen name of Bella Ellis on Saturday June 12 at 1pm. The series sees the Brontë sisters turn detectives before they become famous authors. (Sue Wilkinson)
1 Jane EyreBecause The Wife Upstairs was inspired by Jane Eyre, now is a good time to re-read this Charlotte Brontë classic. Jane Eyre may have a plain appearance, but she is filled with spirit, wit, and courage despite her upbringing by her cruel aunt, Mrs. Reed. When she becomes the governess to the daughter of the mysterious Mr. Rochester at Thornfield, she secretly falls in love. But when a mysterious fire starts and a man shows up claiming to be the brother of Mr. Rochester's first wife, Jane realises things aren't exactly what they seem. (Sydni Ellis)
Adler by Lavie Tidhard and Paul McCaffreyCan’t get enough of Irene Adler? Think The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would be better with women? Try Adler, in which the opera singer-turned-adventuress teams up with other fictional women — Lady Havisham! Jane Eyre! — as well as real historical figures — Marie Curie! Queen Victoria! — to protect the British Empire from an angry African queen and a vampiric assassin. (Eileen Gonzalez)
Her willingness to embrace female nuance and unlikeability makes her part of a new generation of talent buoyed by Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, Michaela Coel’s unjustly Golden Globe ignored I May Destroy You, and Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper’s compelling I Hate Suzie. While books are full of women who frighten and fascinate (Fennell counts the Brontës, Patricia Highsmith and Hilary Mantel among favourites), screen depictions often feel far flatter, she thinks, because physical appearance supercedes attention to detail. “These kind of weird old ladies or pervs or voyeurs” are absent; “We don’t see female losers at all.” (Hannah Betts)
Shirley – who was named after Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous “gallant little cavalier”, a champion of social justice – was born in Chelsea, London, the second child of the political scientist George Catlin and the pacifist author Vera Brittain. The pattern of her life and many of its defining influences owed much to the legacy of their unusual and curious parenting. (Julia Langdon)
Do you know someone with excellent customer service and communication skills who would relish the opportunity to work in a unique heritage setting? We're looking for Visitor Experience Assistants to join our team. Take a look: https://t.co/WQfDaovtbY #Haworth
— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) April 12, 2021
Alexis EasleyEdinburgh University PressISBN: 9781474475921This book highlights the integral relationship between the rise of the popular woman writer and the expansion and diversification of newspaper, book and periodical print media during a period of unprecedented change, 1832–1860. It includes discussions of canonical women writers such as Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, as well as lesser-known figures such as Eliza Cook and Frances Brown. It also examines the ways in which women readers actively responded to a robust popular print culture by creating scrapbooks and engaging in forms of celebrity worship. At the same time, it demonstrates how Victorian women’s participation in popular print culture anticipates our own engagement with new media in the twenty-first century.
Brontë fans from across the globe are backing a campaign to save fields near their birthplace from the bulldozers, as a housing plan threatens a historic landscape linked to the famous sisters.Academics and Brontë-ites from as far afield as Pennsylvania have objected to Bradford Council's plan for housing in Thornton - where the siblings were born - according to a West Yorkshire writer leading the fight.Michael Stewart, who set up the Brontë Stones walk from Thornton to Haworth, says building on the site will wreck the atmospheric route and could kill off a burgeoning tourist trade.However, a spokesperson for Bradford Council said the plans are not on Green Belt land and officers are scrutinising the blueprints.Dr Stewart, who teaches at the University of Huddersfield, said: "Out of Thornton, the first encounter with a rural landscape is at this site."You are suddenly met with a panoramic view of the valley and you can see the moors in the distance - it's spectacular."The draft Local Plan, which is currently being drawn up by Bradford Council, would see 150 homes built on the Thornton site.That would mean give walkers a view of a housing estate and the backs of homes - instead of panoramic views of the countryside.It could deter some of the hundreds of walkers and Brontë fans who are attracted to the walk - and mean the area would miss out on the money they spend in hotels, restaurants, cafes and other attractions.Dr Stewart estimates that 10,000 people have already walked the Brontë Stones Way since it was set up three years ago.The route passes artwork carved into stone that commemorating all three sisters - from artists and writers including Kate Bush and former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.Dr Stewart is warning that the housing plan could hit the area economically as well as harming the cultural heritage.Another walk called the Brontë Way is rarely walked anymore, he said, because housing development means the first 15 miles of the Oakwall Hall to Burnley route now go through new estates.Building on the Thornton site - known as TH2/H in the draft plan - would kill off the Brontë Stones walk in the same way - and see Bradford district loses the tourist trade which is growing up around Brontë birthplace.A consultation period on site allocated for housing closed last March, but Dr Stewart is still urging people to write to the city council planning department to object. (Victoria Prest)
Biography is a problematical genre. Nearly all human life is there. Supermarkets sell in breathtaking numbers the lives of celebrities, television personalities and sports stars; bookshops heave with volumes about those less trivial, but with less popular appeal – politicians, warriors, philosophers and literary figures. A successful literary biographer needs a command of style and narrative commensurate with that of his or her subject, to retain the reader’s confidence. As a result, a list of the great biographies is dominated by those of great writers – Boswell’s Johnson, Forster’s Dickens, Froude’s Carlyle, Mrs Gaskell’s Charlotte Brontë and, in more recent times, George Painter’s stunning life of Proust or Michael Holroyd’s Shaw. (Simon Heffer)
How to Live. What To Do.Jane Eyre is used, presumably, in the Childhood: Schooling chapter.
In search of ourselves in life and literature
Josh Cohen
Ebury Press
ISBN: 9781785039799
2021
From the truths and lies we tell about ourselves to the resonant creations of fiction, stories give shape and meaning to all our lives. Both a practicing psychoanalyst and a professor of literature, Josh Cohen
has long been taken with the mutual echoes between the life struggles of the consulting room and the dramas of the novel. So what might the most memorable characters in literature tell us about how to live meaningfully?
In How to Live. What to Do, Cohen plots a course through the various stages of our lives, discovering in each the surprising and profound insights literature has to offer. Beginning with the playful mindset of Wonderland's Alice, we discover the resilience of Jane Eyre, the rebellious rage of Baldwin's Johnny Grimes and the catastrophic ambitions of Jay Gatsby, the turbulence of first love for Sally Rooney's Frances, the sorrows of marriage for Middlemarch's Dorothea Brooke, and the regrets and comforts of middle age for Rabbit Angstrom.
[Lavie] Tildhar places the action in 1902 London, so a number of characters have to be updated from their 19th century origins to fit the new era. For example, our narrator (and reader POV) is Jane Eyre — but she is no longer the independent-minded governess she was in her eponymous 1847 novel, but instead an even more capable character, a former battlefield medic who served in the Boer War. (Andrew A. Smith)
The first book you remember?It was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, I read it as a girl and it always stayed with me.
She was offered every role going and turned down plenty of prominent parts, including the lead in Elizabeth, which ended up going to Cate Blanchett, and Amélie, which had been specially written for her but eventually was taken by Audrey Tautou. ‘Amélie was at a time in my life when I’d been away a lot; I needed to be at home more, and, anyway, the film was in French, which I don’t speak, and I’d seen Juliette Binoche [speaking English badly] in Wuthering Heights and thought “Hmm, no!”’ (Julia Llewellyn Smith)
On the “Masterpiece” website, “World on Fire” creator Peter Bowker offered this teaser for the second season: “Kasia and Lois will meet, and the fallout from that, I think for everybody, will be interesting and fascinating. Season 2 will start, historically, with the blitz in the Northwest of England. And North Africa will be very much the field of battle. We’ll find out more about Webster’s family history. Nancy will finally have to leave Berlin near the start of the series, for crossing a line, and we will also find out more about Nancy. And she will carry on. She will definitely be in the Soviet Union for some of it. So yeah, that’s the shape it’s taking. And Lois, of course, trapped in a rather Brontë-esque, loveless marriage with Vernon.” (Rich Heldenfels)
Hornsea highlights from its famous pottery to award-winning beach visited by Charlotte Brontë (...)Even the author Charlotte Brontë was among those who visited and one of the highlights of the summer season was the third week in July, when horse racing took place on the beach. (Lucy Oates)
Emma Clayton in The Telegraph & Argus checks out some travel programmes on TV:
Susan Calman’s Grand Days Out also ticked off Yorkshire...Malham Cove and Whitby along with, yep, Brontë Country, where the comic mimed to Wuthering Heights on a wiley, windy moor. Natch.
That song had her in tears. As a new parent she explained she had a bad case of “mum brain” brought on by sleep deprivation. Having not sung in public in more than a year, she also felt “nervous and rusty”. But the self-deprecating patter failed to take the edge off a searing hour that registered somewhere between Tori Amos, Anne Rice and the Brontë sisters. (Ed Power)
Now at the end of the week I still feel reluctant to get out of bed and shower. I haven't read reviews, and I'm just hoping it's not absolutely awful. I try to dismiss thoughts like "Why the hell did you think you could write a book?" and I've stopped wearing the wig, false nose, and fake moustache when I ‘go down the New World' to get more wasabi pea crisps and Whittaker’s white chocolate, but I certainly don't feel like Emily Brontë, Katherine Mansfield or JK Rowling. Though perhaps Emily, Katherine, JK, JRR, AND Michelle Obama also isolated in their rooms eating all manner of weird snacks when their first books came out.
From the myth of the Greek sorceress Circe, who can turn men into swine, and her Indian equivalent Surpanakha, who can turn herself into various forms to lure Laxman into her trap, to the likes of ‘Jane Eyre,’ women have often been portrayed as erratic, violent, and hysteric creatures who stand outside the rational realm of men to attain mysterious, almost mythical proportions.The Arts Desk reviews the film Sequin in a blue room:
At school, Sequin sends texts from under the table while his English teacher invokes Wuthering Heights and rabbits on about obsession, transgression and that remote-seeming word, love. (Matt Wolf)
Quando avevo 17 anni il mio professore di italiano, nell’andare in pensione, mi regalò una copia di Jane Eyre. Pensai che fosse un bel gesto, ma che quel libro non c’entrasse nulla con me, figlia del grunge e della periferia, cosa potevo mai condividere con una delle solite orfane infelici e sfortunate che al massimo potevano realizzarsi con un buon matrimonio, di cui era piena la letteratura? Invece divorai quel libro, con una fame che cresceva a ogni pagina, completamente assorbita da quella ragazza, dalla sua forza, dal suo viaggio senza ritorno verso una meta che era la stessa identica cui tendevo anch’io. La scoperta di se stessi, dell’autenticità e del mistero di ciò che sta sotto le aspettative. Il mio professore sapeva fare il suo lavoro e aveva scelto il libro giusto, conosceva la potenza di quella letteratura che abbiamo incasellato nella definizione di “romanzi di formazione”. (Letizia Giangualano) (Translation)
Victoria Hoyos: Si tuviera que escoger un personaje de ficción de alguna novela para sentarse a charlar un rato, ¿a quién elegiría?Cada libro que uno lee es una conversación en diferido. Ahora estoy releyendo Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brontë y no sabría con quién quedarme. En todo caso, el espíritu de esta autora está ahí en cada frase, al alcance de mi mano. Ella dice y yo subrayo.(Translation)
Pero si El perro de los Baskerville nos parece la novela más importante de Holmes es por su localización. Doyle prefería los ambientes orientales, y confinó durante muchos relatos a Sherlock en Londres, pero soltar al detective en los tétricos escenarios de las hermanas Brontë fue un acierto extremo, las tierras del norte, sus desoladores páramos trabajan a favor de la trama. (Gonzalo Torné) (Translation)
Acessa (Brazil) lists 'best-selling books' including Wuthering Heights. La Nación (Argentina) mentions the Phil Lord & Chris Miller 1998 Brontë Sisters Power Dolls commercial. Vårt Land (Norway) publishes a quiz which includes a Brontë sisters question. The Well Read List reviews Wuthering Heights.
Mar 30, 2021A remarkable Pocket Poets anthology of poems from around the world and across the centuries about illness and healing, both physical and spiritual.From ancient Greece and Rome up to the present moment, poets have responded with sensitivity and insight to the troubles of the human body and mind. Poems of Healing gathers a treasury of such poems, tracing the many possible journeys of physical and spiritual illness, injury, and recovery, from John Donne’s “Hymne to God My God, In My Sicknesse” and Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul has Bandaged moments” to Eavan Boland’s “Anorexic,” from W.H. Auden’s “Miss Gee” to Lucille Clifton’s “Cancer,” and from D.H. Lawrence’s “The Ship of Death” to Rafael Campo’s “Antidote” and Seamus Heaney’s “Miracle.” Here are poems from around the world, by Sappho, Milton, Baudelaire, Longfellow, Cavafy, and Omar Khayyam; by Stevens, Lowell, and Plath; by Zbigniew Herbert, Louise Bogan, Yehuda Amichai, Mark Strand, and Natalia Toledo. Messages of hope in the midst of pain—in such moving poems as Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” George Herbert’s “The Flower,” Wisława Szymborska’s “The End and the Beginning,” Gwendolyn Brooks’ “when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story” and Stevie Smith’s “Away, Melancholy”—make this the perfect gift to accompany anyone on a journey of healing.
The 19th century clock was part of the evening ritual for the father of Britain’s most famous literary family, as he would stop religiously every evening to wind it up on the stroke of 9pm as he made his way upstairs to bed.And the 6ft tall timepiece, which was made by Barraclough of Haworth, has taken on an added resonance in the museum that is now housed in the former Brontë family home.It has just been returned to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth after being restored, an annual task that was abandoned last year as the first lockdown was imposed.The clock remained silent throughout the intervening 12 months, but it is now back on the staircase after being cleaned and conserved, its distinctive ticking resonating around the museum.For the Parsonage’s chief curator, Ann Dinsdale, it is a moment that signifies a renewed hope for the future as the museum’s staff and volunteers prepare to re-open to the public next month.She told The Yorkshire Post: “The Parsonage has been eerily quiet for so long now, but to have the clock back and ticking again is wonderful. It really is a big moment for us all, as it is symbolic that the museum is about to re-open to the public again.”The work was carried out by David Barker, a fellow of the British Horological Institute and one of only a handful of accredited clock conservators in Britain.He said: “I have been working on the Parsonage’s clocks for 30 years, and I have enjoyed connecting with them again. It is nice to know that the clock is back where it should be, and working again.”The Parsonage is set to welcome back its first visitors again on May 19, and anyone passing through the entrance will be given unprecedented access to witness some of the 7,000 artefacts which are in the museum’s collection.Visitor numbers will be limited to just six people every 15 minutes, meaning that the venue will be free of the crowds who normally pack into its corridors and rooms. [...]Ms Dinsdale said: “We obviously want people to be able to enjoy the Parsonage safely, so that means people will be able to see the exhibits on show in a manner which is definitely a break from the norm.“It really will be a special time for anyone coming to visit, and we are just so glad to be able to welcome people back once again.”Among the highlights once the museum re-opens will be the exhibition marking the bicentenary of Anne Brontë’s birth, which has been extended into this year after the Parsonage was forced to close in 2020.Among the other artefacts on display will be five of the six “little books” which were written by Charlotte Brontë when she was aged just 14. (Paul Jeeves)
Our team of volunteer gardeners have been hard at work for the past year, coming in when they've been able to do so safely to maintain the Parsonage garden. We think they're absolute stars - here are some pics of the beautiful blooms we're able to enjoy due to their hard work! pic.twitter.com/yuyaj6YlFx
— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) April 9, 2021
During my daughter’s early years, one of my greatest escapes was (as it has always been) reading fiction. But the more I read, the more I wondered why the intensity of motherhood, and in particular single motherhood, had not been treated as a worthy literary subject by many writers.James Joyce wrote a book about a guy just walking around Dublin. Why had no one ever done the interior monologue of a woman sitting through a mother’s group? Emily Brontë wrote the compelling tale of Heathcliff’s rage, but why had no writer ever attempted the same for a toddler? Why were there so few books about the minutiae of mothering? (Jacqueline Maley)
“Jane Eyre—she’s a confident, virtuous woman who stands true to her morals and convictions despite the pressures around her and finds love so much greater because of it.”– Christina, Denver, Colorado
I sense deixar Twitter, els hashtag #Sanditon i #SaveSanditon concentren un munt d’aficionats arreu del món de la sèrie de la BBC que es pot veure a Filmin. Com que una temporada es fa curta, i sense concreció d’una segona, els fans tornen a veure els capítols i els comenten en temps real de vegades fins i tot comentant la novel·la en què està inspirada la sèrie, ‘Sanditon’ de Jane Eyre. L’obra inacabada de la mítica novel·lista, que ha publicat Alba, té un inesperat i àvid focus d’atenció. (Carol Álvarez) (Translation)
Horror in the Age of Steam
Tales of Terror in the Victorian Age of Transitions
By Carroll Clayton SavantRoutledgeISBN 9780367858582March 2021Change is terrifying, and rapid change, within a small amount of time, is destabilizing to any culture. England, under the tutelage of Queen Victoria, witnessed precipitous change the likes of which it had not encountered in generations. Wholesale swaths of the economy and the social structure underwent complete recalibration, through the hands of economic progress, industrial innovation, scientific discovery, and social cohesiveness. Faced with such change, Britons had to redefine the concept of work, belief, and even what it meant to be English. Victorians relied on many methods to attempt to release the steam from the anxieties incurred through change, and one of those methods was the horror story of everyday existence during an age of transition. This book is a study of how authors Elizabeth Gaskell, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë turned to horrifying representations of everyday reality to illustrate the psychological-traumatic terrors of an age of transition.
Chapter Three: Greeks, Freaks, and Raving Lunatics: The Monstrous World of Science in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering HeightsChapter Four: Hysterical Angels and Loud-Mouthed Hussies: Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the Transformation of Gendered Voices in Victorian England
Now Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council have submitted an application to install a new notice board, which will hold a map of key attractions in the village, at the bottom of Main Street.The Council's application says it could be the first in a number of tourist maps installed at key sites in Haworth. [...]The Parish Council's application says: "As a result of the closure of the Tourist Information Centre there has been a concern that visitors required information located at specific locations in the form of a map to identify places of interest."The Parish Council believes this village map board will have positive benefits in promoting tourism in the area."Hopefully this will be the first map board to be placed at strategic locations across the village."If the application is approved, the first sign will be installed near an existing heritage sign outside the Old Hall Hotel.A decision on the application is expected next month. (Chris Young)
one of the few prequels that has lived up to the genius of the book that inspired it. (Jane Sullivan)
The Eyre Affair by Jasper FfordeIn an alternate Great Britain, futuristic technologies like cloning and time travel are everyday commodities. When the conniving Acheron Hades seeks to erase Jane Eyre (yes, the Jane Eyre) from history, detective Thursday Next is assigned to the case. As she dodges time-space-sucking black holes and reckons with all sorts of anachronistic nightmares, Thursday is the literary world’s only hope of bringing justice to Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë’s poor manuscript. (CJ Connor)
He also has an Englishman’s innate understanding that things will invariably go wrong. In 1970 Fairport played the Yorkshire Folk, Jazz and Blues Festival, an attempt at a British Woodstock that ended up as a hippy Wuthering Heights, with howling gales and its forlorn promoter going mad and spending two weeks wandering the Yorkshire moors. (Will Hodgkinson)
The debut director and co-writer Samuel van Grinsven displays a deft comedic touch with the classroom scenes (teacher droning on about Heathcliff and Victorian romance while Sequin sexts potential conquests) and with Sequin’s awkward exchanges with his blokey, matey father (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor). (Kevin Maher)
To celebrate the 251st Birth Anniversary of William Wordsworth and the 201st Birth Anniversary of Anne Brontë, a special talk by Dr. R. Purnima, Director of Children’s Literary Club, and formerly Professor of English, KSOU, is organised at 5.30 pm on Apr. 9. This event will be held at Chamundi Children’s Home, II Stage Brindavan Extension, Mysuru. For details contact Mob: 96323-15924.
Originally staged at the Erie Playhouse in 1998, Jane Eyre is a compe
lling and entertaining musical version of the Bronte classic, featuring a book, music, and lyrics written by Erie's own David Matthews, Charlie Corritore, and Michael Malthaner, that will soar into the hearts and minds of the audience!Join us as we enjoy this premiere from the Playhouse past, available for streaming VIDEO-ON-DEMAND, April 9-18.
Apr. 9-17 2021 · 12:00 am
Apr. 18, 2021 · 11:30 pm
The Brontë Parsonage Museum in West Yorkshire has been getting ready to partially re-open next week as lockdown restrictions continue to ease.The home of the sisters who wrote some of the greatest English novels has been closed for most of the last year, with the shop finally being allowed to re-open next week.The museum is hoping to re-open fully in May after being kept afloat by donations from the public.Ann Dinsdale, who has worked at the museum for 32 years, said: "There's been nothing to compare with this in my experience."It's been quite devastating really. The parsonage was kept open all through the Second World War so to have to shut was really like a huge momentous thing and there was always that worry that we might never reopen." [...]Rebecca Yorke, from the museum, said: "We managed to open last September and October and we organised a timed ticketing system where people booked their tickets in advance and we limit it to six people every 15 minutes, that means we can control numbers and people can have a really safe welcoming experience."Visitors really benefit from that because they have what would normally be a very busy house practically to themselves as they go through, so that's a win-win situation." (Jon Hill)
If you're looking for somewhere beautiful to visit after lockdown, you'd do well to consider picturesque Haworth during a staycation to Yorkshire this summer.Strolling around the village of Haworth in the Airedale Valley is like stepping into another era. It’s got a buzzy high street with tea rooms, pubs and craft shops, and steep cobbled alleys which you can climb for never-ending views of the beautiful moorland all around.You’ll also sense its proud literary heritage in the town’s storied streets - a certain local family’s name is everywhere, with landmarks, museums and natural sights named after its most famous residents. [...]The history of the Brontë family can be traced in Haworth’s world-famous Brontë Parsonage Museum, where you’ll find 19-century furniture, clothing and the sisters’ own personal possessions.Following the path from the Parsonage Museum, you’ll reach the rugged moors where so much of their writing was set in a few minutes. This dramatic landscape was the backdrop to Catherine and Heathcliffe’s [sic] love affair in the legendary Wuthering Heights, which you should wrap up warm and relive!Marrying the town’s two golden treasures - the Brontës and country walks - is the Brontë Trail, which takes you across the moors from Haworth to the lovely Brontë Waterfall in just 45 minutes. (Rebecca Wilson)
The pipistrelles were discovered in the roof of the Grade II listed South Square Centre in Thornton, near Bradford, during the arts centre's restoration in 2020, close to where the three literary sisters were born.Now the bats have a replica of the Brontës' birthplace as a bat box."It was never going to be 'just a box'," the arts centre said. [...]The arts centre asked heritage assistant Chloe Moreton to design the box - a replica of the Brontës' birthplace on Market Street in Thornton, a few minutes walk from the Grade II listed arts centre on South Square. [...]Yvonne Carmichael is director of the arts centre, a collection of 19th Century Grade II workers' cottages in Thornton, five miles (8km) from Bradford.She said: "We do a lot of work around the Brontë family, so it was only right that we named our bats after the three remarkable sisters."
The Women’s prize for fiction has issued a strongly worded statement saying that it “deplores any attempts to malign or bully” authors nominated for the prize, after trans novelist Torrey Peters was targeted in an open letter.The US writer, who is nominated for the £30,000 award for her debut novel Detransition, Baby, was the subject of a letter published online on Tuesday by the Wild Women Writing Club. The letter, which is signed by several dead women writers including Emily Dickinson and Daphne du Maurier, claims that some signatories were using pseudonyms “because of the threat of harassment by trans extremists and/or cancellation by the book industry”.The signatories argue that the decision to longlist Peters for the Women’s prize, founded 25 years ago in the aftermath of an all-male Booker shortlist, “communicates powerfully that women authors are unworthy of our own prize, and that it is fine to allow male people to appropriate our honours … the moment you decided that a male author was eligible, the award ceased to be the Women’s prize and became simply the Fiction prize.” [...]Others made light of the pseudonyms on the letter; author Melinda Salisbury wrote: “Just bought a new book! It’s called Detransition, Baby, It was recommended by my good friend, Emily Brontë. She’s a big fan.” Author Joanne Harris wrote, “If you’re expecting me to believe that you’re not secretly ashamed of your opinions, or embarrassed by your allies, then maybe don’t hide behind a dead person’s identity whilst simultaneously trying to strip someone living of theirs.” (Sian Cain)
Among the signatories are Emily Dickinson, who died in 1886; Daphne DuMaurier, who died in 1989; Willa Cather, who died in 1947; and Currar [sic] Bell, the pseudonym of Emily Bronte [SIC] who died in 1855. (Lily Wakefield)
El libro, hacia su giro final, toma tintes de novela de terror, ¿cuál diría que es el elemento que la lleva a ese punto? ¿Únicamente la imaginación de Claudia hija?Siempre quise escribir una novela gótica. En la adolescencia me fascinaron Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, y Rebeca, de Daphne Du Maurier, que son novelas góticas. Además, vengo de una tradición en la que el gótico tropical tuvo bastante fuerza: Andrés Caicedo en Noche sin fortuna y algunos cuentos y Carlos Mayolo en el cine. (Laura López) (Translation)
Speaking about the proposal, Colin Parr, Kirklees Council’s strategic director for environment and climate change, said: “The proposal detailed in the report will allow the council to retain the property in public ownership without incurring huge operating costs.“We have looked at the example set by the National Trust and the Landmark Trust, who both renovate heritage buildings to let as holiday cottages as a way of sustaining them, and we are confident that this could be a business model that works for the council too.“As well as its broad appeal, we think this scheme will benefit tourism to the area by attracting people who are interested in the Brontë connection to Red House, and the prospect of staying in a house where Charlotte frequently visited and wrote about.“At the same time, we hope that the proposal will make it possible to offer managed community access to a site which we know is much-loved by local people.”A spokesperson for the Red House Yorkshire Heritage Trust said: “We are aware that Kirklees Council has published their proposal to make a significant investment into the Red House site. Their vision is for both the main house and cart shed to be refurbished and re-opened as quality short-term holiday stays.“Our group’s priority remains that this important heritage site is respected and protected in public or community hands.“We recognise that for this to happen, there must be an appropriate, sympathetic and financially viable use for the site, so while we certainly welcome the investment, we remain open-minded about the council’s new approach.“From conversations we have had with the council, we are pleased that they recognise that our views on the future of Red House are important.“We have been assured that although this proposal does have a commercial focus, there is a commitment to ensuring our local community can also access the site over a number of open weekends and specially-curated events throughout the year which pay homage to its outstanding heritage credentials.“The council have also assured us that as the barn will not be a part of the new commercial activity there could be scope for community and heritage activities to be based there in the future.“We look forward to being consulted as the project progresses and to celebrating the heritage of the site and facilitating access for the benefit of the local and wider community.”
University of South Carolina. Department of Theatre and Dance presents
You on the Moors Now
April 9-17, 2021
Written by Jaclyn Backhaus
Directed by Ibi Owolabi
Drayton Hall Theatre
Freeing four iconic fictional heroines from the social confines of their 19th century novels, Jaclyn Backhaus’ rip-roaring You on the Moors Now brings a fiercely modern sensibility to antiquated ideas of love and romance. Rather than waiting for their fates to be decided by marriage proposals, Jane (Jane Eyre), Jo (Little Women), Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice) and Cathy (Wuthering Heights) band together to reject their famous suitors, leading to a literal battle of the sexes.
Further information on Columbia Star,
Campaigners who fought to save Gomersal’s historic Red House say they are “open-minded” about a decision to turn it into a short-term holiday destination and intimate wedding venue.The former Red House Museum, which has connections to Charlotte Brontë, was closed by Kirklees Council in 2016 as part of a reaction to Government austerity cuts.There then followed a lengthy campaign by the Red House Heritage Group to take on the site and develop it as a heritage resource.The council turned down three asset transfer requests and announced in September 2019 that the building and grounds were to be put on the market.The Red House Heritage Group wanted the site turned over to them.Last week the council revealed that the Grade II* listed 19th century manor house to be comprehensively refurbished to become a five-star high-end luxury holiday home for commercial holiday letting.There will also be a room for weddings.Reacting to the news, Red House Heritage Group said its priority remains that the site “is respected and protected in public or community hands”.A spokeswomen said: “We recognise that for this to happen, there must be an appropriate, sympathetic and financially viable use for the site, so while we certainly welcome the investment, we remain open-minded about the council’s new approach.”As well as the main house the site’s cart shed will be remodelled and refitted to provide four individual self-contained holiday apartments.The barn is not included in the commercial proposal and remains a community asset.The group, which has been granted charitable status and will now be known as Red House Yorkshire Heritage Trust, said it has been assured that there is a commitment to ensuring the local community can also access Red House over a number of open weekends and specially-curated events throughout the year, “which pay homage to its outstanding heritage credentials”.The group added: “The council have also assured us that as the barn will not be a part of the new commercial activity there could be scope for community and heritage activities to be based there in the future.”With its connections to Charlotte Brontë , who stayed at Red House and renamed it ‘Briarmains’ in her 1849 novel Shirley, the site is expected to have broad appeal.Red House Museum, which explained the history of Gomersal’s intrepid feminist and author, Mary Taylor, and her friendship with Charlotte Brontë, was one of two venues closed by Kirklees Council in December 2016 amid budget cuts. (Tony Earnshaw)
Charlotte Brontë became the subject of literary London gossip when she dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to William Makepeace Thackeray, by way of a thank you for his enthusiastic review. Readers saw unintended parallels between Mr Rochester and Thackeray, whose own wife was insane… (Lizzie Enfield)
“Jane Eyre” (1847)Long before she sets foot in Thornfield Hall, a young Jane Eyre lives through an outbreak of tuberculosis at Lowood Institution. Jane remains healthy, despite the aunt who sent her to Lowood hoping Jane would die from the contagion. Tuberculosis does claim the life Jane’s best friend, Helen Burns, just as it did the lives of Charlotte Brontë’s sisters, Elizabeth and Maria. They died in 1825 after being sent to the Clergy’s Daughters’ School. (Laura Hale Brockway)
The books in order are “Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse,” “Goth Girl and the Fete Worse than Death,” “Goth Girl and the Pirate Queen,” and my favorite, “Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright.” Set in the late 1700s, Ada prepares to compete in the Literary Dog Show hosted by her father at the estate. With her best friend visiting on Christmas break, Ada has high hopes for the visit and the competition. Tomfoolery is afoot, however, when one of the entrants conspires to cheat. Part Steam Punk, part Goth, and part the England of Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and the Brontë sisters, these little books complete with footnotes will delight children whose humor tends toward puns and riddles. Riddell’s enchanting illustrations highlight the atmosphere of the books and their eccentric characters. (Melony Carey)
Doyle prefería los ambientes orientales, y confinó durante muchos relatos a Sherlock en Londres, pero soltar al detective en los tétricos escenarios de las hermanas Brontë fue un acierto extremo, las tierras del norte, sus desoladores páramos trabajan a favor de la trama. Por encima del crimen el auténtico rival de Holmes es el ambiente: atávico, supersticioso, recorrido por vientos como premoniciones de espectros, paciente hasta la crueldad... Doyle parece complacerse en enviar primero a Watson y después a Holmes a que pongan orden en el mundo de Cumbres borrascosas, una atmósfera, un paisaje y una densidad moral capaces de mellar la confianza del detective en el orden lógico donde se sustenta (al menos en el orden de la ficción) su brillante juego de inducciones y deducciones. La novela amenaza con algo mucho más terrible que vencer a Holmes: destrozar el propio juego. Pero Doyle no fue tan lejos, por momentos enhebra la aguja, pero enseguida pierde el hilo; la novela oculta en su interior un profundo y sugestivo conflicto que no llega a encarar. (Gonzalo Torné) (Translation)
What book did you most enjoy in school?The book I liked the most in school was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I was blown away by the alternate take on Jane Eyre from the perspective of Rochester’s first wife and without giving too much away, it’s a short novel about colonization, relationships, and mental illness that I’ll never forget. [...]Name a book you’ve pretended to have read.I never made it all the way through Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and skipped through the book for school. I’ve tried a few times to get through the entire thing but the characters that fascinated me the most got the least amount of development and so I read other books like Wide Sargasso Sea to fill in those gaps and never quite made it back to Jane Eyre. I made sure to get the Cliff Notes for school projects and managed to pass any classes that covered it but haven’t actually read it. I’ll keep trying!
Ok, it's just a silly pun in the title, but it's nice anyway. The latest instalment of the Dog Man series has a Brontë-ish title:Dog Man #10: Mothering Heights
By Dav PilkeyIllustrator Dav Pilkey
Scholastic Inc.ISBN13: 9781338680454The 10th Dog Man adventure from the worldwide bestselling author and artist Dav Pilkey. You'll howl with laughter!Dav Pilkey's wildly popular Dog Man series appeals t
o readers of all ages and explores universally positive themes, including empathy, kindness, persistence, and the importance of doing good.
The Argus-Courier loves this kind of jokes:
One of the smartest things about this series has been the cool literary shout-outs to classic novels embedded in the books’ titles, which often inform the plots of Pilkey’s off-the-wall stories. “Mothering Heights” is an obvious homage to Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” of course, but it’s just the latest in a string of similarly spoofy titles. (David Templeton)
The Red House in Gomersal was a museum, but Kirklees Council is to consider a £600,000 project to give the premises a new lease of life.Proposals for the “ground-breaking” £600,000 project are set to come before Kirklees Council’s decision-making cabinet later this month (April 13).They include “comprehensive refurbishment and some sympathetic remodelling” of the Grade II* listed 19th century manor house to become a five-star high-end luxury holiday home for commercial holiday letting, accommodating 10 people within five bedrooms to be let as a single holiday cottage unit.The site’s cart shed will be remodelled and refitted to provide four individual self-contained holiday apartments, each accommodating two people, available to book either individually or in addition to the main house.The barn is not included in the commercial proposal and remains a community asset.Revenue generated from holiday stays is expected to be sufficient to cover the costs of operating the site and to enable a series of planned open days/weekends ensuring community access to the site for planned and curated activities and events. There will also be a room for weddings.The handover could be as soon as March 2022 with the house open for holiday stays in April.However the site will not be completely devoted to commercial hires. Community access to the house and gardens will be offered over a series of managed and curated events and open days thus allowing the public to enjoy the house and grounds.With its connections to Charlotte Brontë, who stayed at Red House and renamed it ‘Briarmains’ in her 1849 novel Shirley, the site is expected to have broad appeal.Red House Museum, which explained the history of Gomersal’s intrepid feminist and author, Mary Taylor and her friendship with Charlotte Brontë, was one of two venues closed by Kirklees Council in December 2016 amid budget cuts.The council turned down three asset transfer requests and announced in September 2019 that the building and grounds were to be put on the market.Campaigners with the Red House Heritage Group wanted the site turned over to them.Senior Labour councillor Graham Turner described the move as “ground-breaking”.He added: “This project will not only help stimulate the local economy but will ensure that this historic building is retained as a publicly-owned building.“We have never tried this type of project before, but I have every confidence that this will be a great success and could lead the way to other exciting commercial ventures that can protect some of our historic assets.”The holiday home plan has also received the backing of local councillors David Hall, Lisa Holmes and Michelle Grainger-Mead who referred to Red House as “the heritage jewel in Gomersal’s crown”.They said: “Without a doubt, the key to saving Red House for our community is finding a suitable use for the site, one which means it can pay for its own upkeep.“Given its huge potential appeal to Brontë enthusiasts visiting the wider area, we agree that allowing tourists to holiday here could not only be the key to a financially sustainable future for Red House, but also trigger a wider tourism boost for other local businesses too.” (Tony Earnshaw)
Such is the case with Bertha Mason, the violently insane “madwoman in the attic” and first wife of Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” Jean Rhys comes to Bertha’s rescue in “Wide Sargasso Sea.” The novel is told from the point of view of the “madwoman” herself, who, in Rhys’ retelling, is born Antoinette Cosway in Jamaica before Rochester renames her Bertha.The dark, brooding Rochester is reimagined as a chronically unfaithful and emotionally abusive husband who locks his wife in the attic and hides her from the world. The book is decidedly feminist and anti-colonial — Rochester rejects “Bertha” in part due to her Creole heritage, hastening her descent into madness. Sort of puts Jane in a whole new light. (Barbara Lane)
4. "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush is inspired by the tragic love story of Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.KateBushMusic / Thomas Cautley Newby / Via youtube.com / amazon.comBush captures the same angst and heartache as Brontë did more than a century before her. She tells the love story from Cathy's perspective and even utilizes real lines from the novel throughout her lyrics! "Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy. I've come home, I'm so cold. Let me in your window." (Kat Pickhardt)
